‘A Tooth For An Eye’ deconstructs images of maleness, power and leadership. Who are the people we trust as our leaders and why? What do we have to learn from those we consider inferior? In a sport setting where one would traditionally consider a group of men as powerful and in charge, an unexpected leader emerges. A child enters and allows the men to let go of their hierarchies, machismo and fear of intimacy, as they follow her into a dance. Their lack of expertise and vulnerability shines through as they perform the choreography. Amateurs and skilled dancers alike express joy and a sense of freedom; There is no prestige in their performance. The child is powerful, tough and sweet all at once, roaring “I’m telling you stories, trust me”. There is no shame in her girliness, rather she possesses knowledge that the men lost a long time ago.

As we’ve previously reported, Swedish electronic pop/not-pop duo The Knife are set to release their long-awaited follow-up to 2006’s acclaimed Silent Shout, entitled Shaking The Habitual, on 8th April. Now the official video has been released

This April The Knife release their first studio album since Silent Shout seven years ago. The album, Shaking The Habitual, is now available to pre-order in the below formats:

*Marit Östberg is a filmmaker and visual artist, based in Stockholm and Berlin. Her works are often focused on images of queer bodies and sexualities. She sees her work in a wider context of feminist fights and histories and her visual world has been described as uncompromising. Uncompromisingly current. Uncompromisingly sexy. Uncompromisingly political.

“The film ‘Full of Fire’ started to grow as an embryo in the song´s lines ‘Who looks after my story’. Who takes care of our stories when the big history, written by straight rich white men, erase the complexity of human´s lives, desires and conditions? The film ‘Full of Fire’ consists of a network of fates, fears, cravings, longings, losses, and promises. Fates that at first sight seem isolated from each other, but if we pay attention, we can see that everything essentially moves into each other. Our lives are intertwined and our eyes on each other, our sounds and smells, mean something. Our actions create reality, we create each other. We are never faceless, not even in the most grey anonymous streets of the city. We will never stop being responsible, being extensions, of one another. We will never stop longing for each other, and for something else.”
– Marit Östberg

Swedish synthpop maestros The Knife have today announced a 14-date European tour in support of their forthcoming fifth album Shaking The Habitual, out on April 8 via Brille. Their sole UK date will be at London’s Roundhouse on May 8 – pre-sale tickets will be available to mailing list subscribers on Wednesday, January 16, at 9am; subscribe here.

In the meantime, take a look at last month’s teaser trailer for the album below:

Music can be so meaningless.
We had to find lust.
We asked our friends and lovers to help us.http://theknife.net

Swedish electro-pop duo The Knife have announced plans to release a studio version of the opera Tomorrow, in a Year, in collaboration with bands Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, on March 1. Tomorrow, In A Year, commissioned by performance group Hotel Pro Forma, is based on the work of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

“At first it was very difficult, as we really didn’t know anything about opera. We’d never been to one,” says Olof Dreijer of The Knife. “But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera.”

The Knife had originally composed the music on their own for the opera itself, but decided to pull in Mt. Sims and Planningtorock to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme. The opera has performances slated until February 1 in Stockholm, Sweden. Subscribers to The Knife’s mailing list will receive a free download of the track “Colouring of Pigeons” from the upcoming album.

Time to sum up the past ten years and list the 20 best / most important electronic, electro, EBM and synth albums that has been released. This is of course a tricky quest and will most likely create some debate. Numerous of good albums has been released and I have certainly not listened to all of them, but still someone needs to make a statement :-). The albums are listed in order of importance, but may not be absolute, in the sense that – if they are rated as number 6, they could easily be argued to have place number 7 instead etc, but still…

I sure hope this is just a side project and that the awesome collaboration between the two siblings aint over for good. Anyhow, Miss Karin Dreijer Andersson from The Knife send out this message on a couple of news sites telling us about the newly posted laidback and minimalistic piece “If I Had a Heart” with her solo project Fever Ray on MySpace. The debut album is scheduled for early 2009. Amongst the influences mentioned we find “Miami Vice”, Aphex Twin, David Lynch and Björk.

Not only is Adrian Recordings continually stretching into new genres, they’re also entering new territories! Printer is a 4-piece electronic/techno act from Denmark and this is their full-length debut.

Printer is a 4-piece band formed as a regular post-rock band but after the first two weeks, the drummer was up behind a keyboard and the guy brought in as guitar player never left his laptop. Getting more and more integrated as a band by interconnecting instruments through the computer, the name Printer became the best way to parallel this merge between digital and analogue.

On recent works the band has taken a more dirty and danceable, say techno, approach, although still maintaining the emotional and intellectual focus. It’s music to be moved by whether it’ll be on the dance floor or in your couch. It’s electronic pop music at its best. And it’s got power and depth. In addition to that the band really throws on sweaty live shows. They claim to be tired of starring at the floor while playing and instead they raise their heads, lift their hands in the air and lose themselves to the floor. Numerous shows in Denmark, at the Norberg Festival and recently in Malmö together with Familjen, have strengthened them to a full proofed elegant transcendental party banger.